Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Sure, let’s trash the economy too

Transcripts from a Trump interview
with FOX News’ Maria Bartiromo that will air Sunday morning have just leaked and
they suggest what many Americans already feared — that this president is
somehow mentally incapacitated.

Whether, as numerous prominent
psychiatrists have suggested, he is mentally ill,
or he is suffering from early-onset dementia,
or he simply is simply too unqualified to
have any idea of what he’s talking about, this president’s monosyllabic speech
patterns and garbled monologues have many Americans, including
prominent Republicans, questioning his fitness for office.

But his answer to Ms. Bartiromo’s
questions about the Federal Reserve may take the cake.

When the prominent business journalist asked Trump if he was
considering Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell and Stanford University
economist John Taylor as possible appointments for Fed Chairman and Vice-Chairman,
the leader of the free world literally said these words:

It is in my thinking. And I
have a couple of other things in my thinking. But I like talent.
And they are both very talented people. And it’s a hard decision.
It’s actually a very important decision. People have no — most people
have no idea how important that position is. That position is
actually — more — a lot of people get rid of the Fed.Take the Fed out. That’s a
very important position. It’s also important psychotically. If
the right person is there a lot of good things can happen. I think I’m
doing a good job for businesses in that way. People are coming into the
country; you saw what happened with Foxconn going to Wisconsin.

Presumably, he was telling Bartiromo
that he is both considering the two economists for top Federal Reserve jobs and
is also considering dissolving the Federal Reserve. However, the language
he uses to express the crossroads at which he finds himself leaves everything
to be desired.

“A lot of people get rid of the
Fed.”

“It’s also important psychotically.”

This is a man who has lost command
of the English language, if he ever had it in the first place. It
certainly does not sound like a president.

Abolishing the Federal Reserve is a
position popular among Libertarians like Ron Paul and
other far-right conservatives who believe that printing money creates an
artificial sense of security that could collapse at any time.

Last year, Trump met with (and considered as
Treasury Secretary) former CEO of the bank BB&T, John Allison,
who touts dissolving the Fed and returning to the gold standard on which
America based its economic system prior to 1933.

However, without the Fed lowering
interest rates during the Great
Recession, millions more Americans would have ended up underwater
than already had.

Abolishing the Fed would leave
average Americans more vulnerable than ever to another market crisis.

LUCIA BRAWLEY IS A HARVARD- AND
YALE-EDUCATED WRITER, PRODUCER, ACTOR, AND POLITICAL ORGANIZER. SHE RUNS THE
PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL FACEBOOK GROUP CONSENTING TO LEAD. TO LEARN MORE, PLEASE
GO TO LUCIABRAWLEY.COM.